Effective as of the announcement (12/11/2023) (Please confirm with your tournament organisers that they are using the updated points)
- Gamble (+1 to 1)
- Green Sun’s Zenith (1 to 0)
Watch List
- Forth Eorlingas (+1 to 1)
- Spellseeker and Mental Misstep remain on the watchlist
- Caves of Chaos Adventurer, The One Ring, and Beseech the Mirror removed from the watchlist
Overall we’re very happy with the results of the last set of changes. Mystic Sanctuary has made a significant impact on its return to the format, and we’re seeing people starting to have some success with slower blue decks. RW/x Initiative decks are back down to a healthy spot in the metagame, but still seeing an amount of play, and the metagame appears to be quite varied both in the macro archetype. We’re making two changes this update, one to slightly reign in an overperforming deck, and one to open up some more opportunities to under-explored archetypes.
The Changes
Gamble (+1 to 1)
Lurrus Breach continues to be one of the best-performing decks in the metagame. We like Lurrus Breach as a pillar of the format, and a cool deck unique to 7ph, and a deck that takes skill and experience to play. With that being said, breach continues to put up dominant results in the hands of experienced pilots, and the metagame hasn’t been able to adequately adjust. We want breach players to still be able to play and win with the deck, just with slightly less consistency.
Assigning points to this deck is complicated as it leans heavily on all of the pointed cards which means pointing any of its existing pointed pieces could change the deck’s identity, and more drastically impact its performance then we want. Our solution is to point Gamble. Gamble represents both a cheap tutor and a one-card way for the deck to begin its combo (with sufficient graveyard resources). We think that Intuition and Gamble should compete for the final point in this deck as 1-card combo pieces and this will bring the deck’s power level to a more fair place compared to the rest of the meta. We like that this change potentially opens more decision spaces for Underworld Breach decks, while reducing their speed and power, hopefully opening up more windows for players to interact with them on early turns.
Gamble is also an individually powerful card, and one of the best-unpointed tutors, that allows other graveyard-based decks to gain cheap access to a tutor and we don’t mind those decks having to pay a point for its effect.
We’re open to investigating depointings for other gamble decks in upcoming announcements.
Green Sun’s Zenith (-1 to 0)
The meta has changed quite a bit since Green Suns’s Zenith was originally pointed. In general, decks are a bit faster and punish the loss of tempo accrued by paying an additional G for a threat.
Wrenn and Six’s printing struck fear in the hearts of green mages and their x/1s, and now Fury has taken that punishment to the next level. Green Sun’s Zenith and the heavily green decks that primarily use it could safely be given another point to play with and we look forward to seeing what they do with it. We’re particularly hoping to incentivise people to experiment with elf ball and creature combo-style decks, which haven’t seen much success.
We are aware that many green midrange decks like Jund or Omnath may pick this up, however, it is at its best when it’s a toolbox or combo card, and many of the fair cards in those decks become much less threatening when they cost an extra green mana.
Watchlist
The previous announcements watchlist contained a lot of cards that we thought might become overrepresented in the format but have not done so yet. Beseech the Mirror, The One Ring, and Caves of Chaos Adventurer are all obviously powerful and we haven’t forgotten them, however, our focus will draw to some newer contenders at this time. We also really appreciate the community discussion around Mental Misstep, but given there was no clear consensus either way we are choosing to leave it at 0, at least for now. Notably, Spellseeker remains on the watchlist, and the committee will continue to discuss it in upcoming announcements.
Forth Eorlingas! (+1 to 1)
This card is certainly making a splash and has impressed a lot of its early pilots. We’re not convinced its power level merits a point during this announcement, however, we can see its potential and are watching to see what it does in the meta.
Perhaps Forth Eorlingas! becomes so powerful every deck feels the need to splash red white to have access to its effect, or maybe it just becomes a strong draw for decks who are already in the market for a flexibly costed threat/card advantage engine. We’ll be watching and acting accordingly.
